Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director

[Martin Stiemerling <[e-mail]>]

Mary,

On 03/03/2013 05:32 PM, Mary Barnes wrote:
> Lars,
>
> Do you not have individuals in the directorate that are experts on
> congestion control (that aren't document authors) that can review for
> technical sanity of the proposal?  ISTM that some of the TSV nominees

We have individuals in the directorate that are experts on congestion 
control and we will have also knowledge in the IESG after Wes will step 
down in the next week, i.e., which is me.

I am not a full congestion control expert like some individuals out of 
the directorate and also the community. But I do understand the topic 
well enough and do know whom to ask in the case of doubt.

However, it is always good to have multiple eyes/2 ADs with a congestion 
control background, as the topic is so sensitive to the proper operation 
of the Internet and sometimes things slip through for a number or 
reasons, i.e., for eyes see more than two eyes.

> have broad technical skills, including management that could be quite
> useful.  Certainly, we have an example where a Nomcom appointed
> someone with little expertise for a specific area and the result was
> not good. However, I believe that was far more to do with how the
> individual approached the role - authoritarian versus understanding
> that from a technical perspective they should really listen to the
> experts.  IMHO, that's the most important skill that some ADs lack -
> i.e., listening.

I agree and disagree:
An AD must be a good manager and be able to listen.

But, an AD must have a broad knowledge about the Area's technical 
topics, as the time to dig into all fields is just too scare once you 
are an AD. I.e., there is not enough time to arrive as a manager and to 
learn all the tech topics.

Regards,

   Martin

>
> In my experience at not all ADs carefully scrutinize WG items and they
> tend to rely on the write-up of the shepherd.  While the shepherd is
> most often the WG chair, if they do their job properly, I believe that
> the problems that an AD might encounter are fewer.   I will note that
> from what I have seen not all shepherds actually review the documents
> themselves, which is a problem unto itself. There is often quite
> visible when one does gen-art reviews.   ISTM, there is a way for the
> process to work with an AD that is not the technical expert in
> specific areas IF others down the chain do their jobs properly.  Of
> course, IETF is really bad at managing down the chain when there are
> weak links. IMHO, someone with decent project management and people
> management skills can make a huge difference.
>
> Regards,
> Mary.
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Eggert, Lars <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Mar 3, 2013, at 15:35, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> What I'm getting at is that this line of argument doesn't scale.
>>> The only solution I see is to replace it by
>>> "Several people on the Y Directorate need to understand X."
>>
>> only if the Y directorate reviews all IDs going through the IESG. Which in itself is a scaling issue. It may work for some topics, but things will fall through the cracks for various reasons.
>>
>> IMO congestion control is important and fundamental enough that the IESG itself needs to have the knowledge. YEs, I'm biased.
>>
>> Lars

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